IslandGuru Who payed the critics

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

xcal321 I worked as the festival coordinator for the Toronto Environmental Film festival in 2001 -- this was definitely the most powerful and entertaining piece to be shown on the screens. The audience response was very similar and I've watched it several more times over.The characters, the conversations and the twists together form a genuine and intriguing film -- something we all could relate to and I truly believe some of the choice made are similar to reactions I would have in the same position.This film is very human and very french - but worth every moment.Please try it. Mitchell

hamlet2b This was a fine film and a good study of a benign narcissist. Alex has clearly suffered some major trauma, not just the recent witnessing of dead people trapped in a shipwreck under the Indian sea, but something primordial that we, and he, can only guess at. For this, despite his immaturity, he remains sympathetic. He is not the blowhard narcissist or manipulator, but rather the childlike one. He tries to make everyone love him, and in so doing, loses all their love. At the same time the film was ingenious in showing how those around him use his narcissistic vulnerability. They are attracted to his eternal youth, bring him into their lives, and spit him out when he is unable to follow through on their demands. In other words it takes two to tango. It is too simple to see the other characters as having been disappointed by an immature man. My heart really went out to this fragile man trying to negotiate the terrain of an emotionally tumultuous world. No wonder he wanted to flee to the dark and silent ocean bottom.

maximo23 From reading the above comments, I imagine that most these people are so used to a "hollywood" movie structure that when they're presented with something that shifts away from that, they just can't make sense out of it. The characters are fully developed, and I think the protagonist, Alex, is extremely believable. He has sympathy towards people who might not deserve it and then he can't get a hold of himself when he's about to put one of his precious relationships at risk. So what? That's exactly how we behave in real life too. The cinematography is awesome, the music is beautiful, the plot is extremely interesting. And all the characters are so...French-Canadian.... I think you have to be French to understand that those situations are not unrealistic. That's why I like Canadian movies - they are different, and tell the story as it is, without trying to embelish situations or try to tie the knots for the viewer... they assume the viewer is intelligent enough to take his own conclusions. Well, not all of them anyway...

Daniel Humphrey (saltsan) "Un Crabe dans la tete" focuses on Alex, a handsome but selfish underwater photographer who undergoes a number of emotional, life-changing experiences while passing through Montreal. When all is said and done, however, writer/director Andre Turpin has presented little more than a rudderless narrative featuring a bunch of unlikable and uninteresting characters, characters whose patience for the boorish protagonist is nearly unaccountable.Again and again, one finds oneself mystified by Alex's actions: If he's meant to be a selfish man, only out for himself and afraid of commitment--leaving his wife after the wedding without a word--why, on the other hand, is he so dangerously loyal to a pathetic female drug dealer? If he can thoughtlessly fall into the arms of his best friend's vulnerable lover, how can he suddenly be so completely (almost overly) ethical about a series of disturbing photographs his agent wants him to display? Great films have been made by examining "unlikable" or selfish characters and about people whose actions and motivations are almost inexplicable (i.e. John Cassavetties' films), but the confusion of this film's characters is never thematized or explored. Alex acts the way he acts only so the melodrama can take another surprising turn.The film is sharply, if erratically, shot, but most paying audiences will surely lose patience with Alex and his associates long before it has ended.